By Lisa Keys, New York Jewish Week
On July 22, 1849, Jewish writer and activist Emma Lazarus, most famous for her sonnet “The New Colossus,” was born in New York City.
Two lines from her poem — “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — have become synonymous with the Statue of Liberty.
But Lazarus was far more than a one-hit wonder. She was a well-known intellectual about town, a tireless advocate for Jewish refugees, a leading authority on and translator of German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine.
“She was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her — a feminist, a Zionist and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before these categories even existed,” according to Esther Schorr, author of the biography Emma Lazarus.
Raised in a wealthy Jewish family in Manhattan, Lazarus was the fourth of seven children and was privately tutored in literature and languages. Her father, Moses, encouraged Lazarus to pursue her education, and she began writing poetry at a young age.
In addition to publishing in leading secular periodicals of her day, she also wrote a series of articles, “An Epistle to the Hebrews,” for American Hebrew on the leading Jewish communal issues of the time, including anti-Semitism and Jewish unity.
Tragically, Lazarus died at the young age of 38 in 1887, likely from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
In honor of what would have been Lazarus’ 176th birthday, here are 10 facts about this pathbreaking Jewish woman.
One. Lazarus was a fifth-generation American Jew. Her ancestors were among the 23 Sephardic Jews who arrived in New York on Sept. 13, 1654, creating the first organized Jewish community in the city.
Two. Lazarus’ first book of poems was privately published by her father when she was 16; the following year, Poems and Translations was commercially published.
Three. Lazarus’ early work caught the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who became a friend and mentor.
Four. Lazarus grew up secular and was not especially attuned to Jewish communal issues. That changed in 1881-82, following a series of violent pogroms against Jews in the tsarist Pale of Settlement. Lazarus became an advocate for the waves of Jewish refugees landing on New York’s shores, volunteering with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and establishing relief organizations of her own.
Five. Her 1882 book, Songs of a Semite, is considered by Poets.org “the first collection of poetry to explore Jewish American identity while struggling with the problems of modern poetics.”
Six. Lazarus was an early advocate for a Jewish homeland. In 1882, some 15 years before the First Zionist Congress, and before the word “Zionism” was coined — Lazarus became “the first well-known American publicly to make the case for a Jewish state,” according to Schorr.
Seven. Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” in 1883, when she was 34. The poem was commissioned as part of a fundraiser to support building a pedestal for a large-scale gift from France: the Statue of Liberty.
Eight. Following the fundraiser, the poem was largely forgotten. The Statue of Liberty opened to the public in 1886; it wasn’t until 1903 that “The New Colossus” was cast in bronze and put on display inside the base of the statue.
Nine. A plaque honoring Lazarus was unveiled at Battery Park on Oct. 5, 1955, as JTA reported at the time.
Ten. New York City has a public high school named after her. Fittingly, The Emma Lazarus High School on the Lower East Side is tailored to English language learners; its 315-student population comprises more than 18 different language groups.
